"Everybody knows that you love me, baby
Everybody knows that you really do
And everybody knows that you've been faithful
Give or take a night or two"

- Leonard Cohen, Everybody Knows

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Stairs and Hallways

From the hours before sunrise until the stroke of midnight, Camelot teemed with life as merchants, publicans, servants, staff, knights, members of court and all imaginable sorts of people all went about their business. In the citadel, apart from a few closed off wings, there was not a staircase or a hallway that was ever empty for very long.

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There had always been a rumour mill among the servants of Camelot. Merlin was aware of this. He'd just never really been a part of it. There had been times, when Gwen was still Merlin's friend but not Arthur's girlfriend, when she would let him know whatever she had picked up during the week, but Gwen wasn't much of a gossip, and only learned that kind of stuff by accident. There had been others, and still were, who had a reputation for knowing everything about everyone – who knew the people of the court better than the court members knew themselves. Merlin wasn't entirely sure where they got all this information, but he imagined it had something to do with the sort of hiding behind statues and lurking around corners that he himself employed to hide his magic, or save the day, or usually both.

When the gossip was ready to be passed on, on the other hand, it was often done in broad daylight in the most public of places. That being the case, it wasn't the first time Merlin rounded a corner to find a group of servants discussing something in hushed, excited voices; and Merlin being the King's loyal manservant, it wasn't the first time he saw such a group go quiet and scatter as he approached. But when it wasn't midday yet and it had already happened three times, he was beginning to worry.

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Lancelot had been released from Gaius' care in the morning, and now that it was past midday he was on his way to the council chambers. On his healthy arm he was carrying books and notes, concerning any and every kind of magic that could have been used to kill Sir Ewan and the robbers, that Gaius had wanted him to bring to the round table and show to Arthur. As he came up from a flight of stairs and into a corridor the books began to slip, and he carefully tried to steady them when he bumped into someone coming out of a doorway and dropped everything.

"Oh, oh I'm so sorry!" someone called. Gwen's maidservant was standing in front of him, looking distressed, when Gwen herself came out of the door and shooed her off. "Lancelot, I'm so sorry! Elaine was just in a hurry," Gwen said as she knelt down to begin picking up the scattered pages. Lancelot saw Gwen in the corner of his eyes, but painstakingly avoided looking directly at her. It had been a long time since the two of them had talked. Since his return to Camelot, Lancelot had tried to avoid ending up alone with her. Even more so since her wedding. Between his duties and hers it hadn't required much effort. They barely met beyond the meetings at the round table.

It hadn't helped.

"What is all this?" Gwen asked, holding up one of the books, and he told her about his errand with his eyes still glued to the ground. Gwen stopped and looked at him.

"Lancelot, I'm so sorry for all of this."

"Don't worry, it's just papers."

"No, I meant ... all of this, this whole situation, it's just painful for everyone, and I want you to know that if I had thought just for a second that you'd come back ... I mean, you did come back, and then I knew you had come back, and I married Arthur anyway so I can't really say that, but I have to explain that ... and I'm not saying I don't love Arthur, because I do, very much, but I ..."

"He needs you," Lancelot interrupted.

"I know. I just wish ..." Gwen drew a deep breath. "I wish I wished I didn't love you."

One single paper still lay on the floor.

"One day you won't. One day we will wake up and all of this will be a memory. You and Arthur will rule Camelot better than anyone before you, and I will fight for both of you, and we will all laugh when we think back on how difficult it all seemed once."

"I hope you are right."

Lancelot looked up. He didn't realise his mistake until their eyes met. His lips moved before he could think, to create the words:

"Arthur is a lucky man."

He hurried to look away, and stretched out his arm to pick up the last paper.

"In many ways he is even luckier than he thinks," he continued, back to not meeting Gwen's eyes, "but I am sure that he knows perfectly well how lucky he is to have you. How lucky Camelot is to have you as its Queen. You are needed here."

He stood up. Gwen followed.

"Lancelot, look at me," she begged.

He could never refuse her. She took the books and papers off his arm.

"I'll take these to the table. I'll be there in a minute. You rest your arm."

Then she leant forward and kissed his cheek before disappearing back into her room. Lancelot looked at the old wooden door for a moment (their room, Arthur and Guinevere's room, the happy, beautiful royal couple, the people I love more than anything) before he turned around and resumed his walk towards the round table.

A few yards further on he stopped and listened. He could have sworn he had heard the sound of departing footsteps.

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Merlin was about to step out of the stairway into the hallway when he caught a glimpse of a group of people further ahead, talking among themselves. Determined to find out what it was this time, he whispered a spell to hear what they were saying.

"... so I hear, anyway."

"The lady Morgana walking through the woods like some beggar?"

"It is hard to believe."

Morgana. They were talking about Morgana. Merlin felt almost relieved.

"I still can't understand ... those days when she was on the throne ..."

"... the same woman as that little girl who used to sneak into the kitchen and run around my feet ..."

"How could anyone commit such horrors?"

Someone grabbed Merlin's shoulder. He almost screamed.

"Are you spying on the servants, Merlin?" Gwaine said.

"Wh... No! I'm just trying to listen to what ... to what they're saying, but I'm not spying per se, I just..."

Gwaine laughed.

"You shouldn't worry so much about what people say, Merlin. They know themselves that most of it is made up, they just like to talk about it."

"You don't understand!" Merlin hissed, looking over his shoulder to make sure the people hadn't heard them. The little group had moved on and Merlin began walking again, explaining to Gwaine as he went along: "I had reason to worry! Leon said that if the people start talking about Gwen and Lancelot, Arthur will have to take some kind of action. That can't happen! Not now, when Morgana just showed up again."

Gwaine looked at him. The smile was almost gone, just a hesitant little turn on one side of his mouth remained.

"Merlin ... people are not talking about them. They're talking about you."

Merlin stopped in his tracks. Gwaine turned around to face him with a bemused look on his face.

"Me?"

"Yes, Merlin, you."

"What ..." Oh God let it not be the magic. But it wasn't about the magic, was it, it was ... "Why?"

"I didn't hear all of it, but apparently they're quite curious about why The King Himself was seen leaving your bedroom at an ungodly hour. I think someone even claimed they'd seen a bit more than that."

Gwaine looked at Merlin as if waiting for a reaction, but Merlin was speechless. The guard in the hallway. He would have looked, and what would he have seen, he would have seen ... He would have seen Arthur in Merlin's doorway in the middle of the night. He would have seen Merlin's almost-hug, and he might, from the right angle, have seen Merlin's hand on Arthur's arm, seen Arthur's hand close over it. And it might have looked like ... But that was ridiculous. People wouldn't believe something like that. Would they?

Gwaine slapped Merlin on the back and smiled. "If you ask me these people are far too interested in the lives of royalty. They'd make molehills into entire mountain ranges just to be able to discuss the comings and goings of their Kings and Queens. Let's not be late for the meeting, shall we?"

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Gwen was just a few doors away from the council chambers when she heard the voices of two maids who were coming down the stairs to her left.

"No, he swears it was the king. But I don't know what to believe of it."

Gwen knew she should carry on, but her feet refused to move.

"I mean, in the middle of the night?" the voice carried on. "What would he be doing up there in the middle of the night?"

They were closer now and Gwen should move if she didn't want to get caught listening to the gossip of handmaidens as if she valued it. But then, she had been a handmaiden, and there had been truth in that talk a lot of the time, hadn't there?

"Don't you go all clueless and coy with me, Mia! Just 'cause he's no girl doesn't mean there's more than one thing kings ever come to th' servants' quarters for. He's been shoppin' there before, hasn't he?"

No, Gwen resolutely decided, she had never really been a handmaiden, she had been a blacksmith's daughter, and she definitely didn't value the gossip of handmaidens. She turned around the corner just before the two women came into view.

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As Arthur walked to the council chambers in the early afternoon, every person he met bowed, or curtsied, or, in the case of a couple of knights, just bowed their heads and smiled at him. They greeted him with "Your highness," or "Good day, My Lord," or "How does your majesty?" And not one more word was said to him. But behind a pillar, out of earshot, one valet leaned towards another and whispered: "She's cheating on him."